obviously don t speak for the russian government but you can give us some insights perhaps into the russian s perspective on this. what do you read into the russian build up of troops? is itjust posturing, trying to blackmail the west or is there real danger there, do you think? i mean, i think putin is not adversed to brinkmanship. i think he does engage in brinkmanship. but i would not say that he is bluffing. you ve got a massive build up of military sources and it s like anton chekhov said, if in act one, you have a gun on the stage, in act three, it is bound to go off so i would not underestimate what we re seeing now with russia but that said, i would say that putin has not made up his mind. i do not think he has made up his mind. i think he is shopping for various possibilities. he is trying to see whether concessions may be made, whether he may be able to get his way somewhere so i think that actually allows opportunity
and he needs to be supported. and basically, war rhetorics is not very much supported by russian population so far. but like it was back in 2014 when he annexed crimea, just ahead of the elections, his rating was going higher, really. now it is not the case but now he s been subjectivized by the international leaders. he has been invited to nato, to the oec bilateral talks and summits, as it was back in the 805, with the us. that brings additional pluses to his narrative and to his support inside moscow, inside russia, so if he goes with a military invasion, it will leave him no room for additional points to be gained by internal narrative so this is something that could restrain him but we should also take into account that it is not only about global talks and implications on ukraine, it is something which perfectly well serves his internal interests as a president who wants to be elected until the very last day of his life.
we would welcome it. carl bildt? the tragic thing at the moment is that putin is dealing far more with the past of russia than with the future of russia. as sergey said, he is a 19th century thinker and he wants to recreate sort of a great russian dominate slavic empire with ukraine, russia, belarus it is the 19th century recreated and then he wants to have sort of the role that that particular russia had in europe, very reactionary intervening that s where he is. but he is a realist. he s a realist. well, that is not the way the modern world is. the 19th century was the 19th century and we are now in the 21st century. what about the athenian generals, the strong exact what they can, the weak grant what they must. i think putin still lives by those rules. he is there but we are more in an interdependent world, where we should be cooperating more across borders. if we descend back into the 19th
and we were shocked that we were put in front of this choice, because we were not thinking this way. we were thinking about the democratic relations with, and friendship with russia, but it is them who has put us in front of that. so sergey, is it inevitable that these autocratic regimes will fall, and what happens? look, i am very pessimistic. because autocrats have fallen, and they were replaced by new autocrats. look at post soviet history, we have had 30 years. and some countries like the baltics are notably stable and democratic and wonderful. you look at some of the central asian countries, we had dictators being replaced by other dictators. or we had, for example in kyrgyzstan, coups and revolutions, and revolutions and coups, and just instability and instability. so the fundamental question here is not about some of those other countries, it is about russia, because it sets the tone across the region. when putin goes, i don t know
on a democratic basis. i think the problem i agree with sergey and olha completely that russia is not a liberal democracy and ukraine is. ukraine is getting closer and closer to the liberal democratic ideal of western europe, and russia does not like it so russia is trying to pull it back into its model which is not a liberal democracy. but if russia did engage with ukraine on a liberal democratic basis, what role would that leave for the united states? they would be vying with you for leadership of the free world, wouldn t they? we are perfectly happy to have russia deal with ukraine in a liberal democratic basis. we would welcome it. carl bildt? the tragic thing at the moment is that putin is dealing far more with the past of russia than with the future of russia. as sergey said, he is a 19th century thinker and he wants to recreate sort of a great russian dominate